[the Mentalist, fan-fic] Focus (part 2)

[little_firestar]

Title: Focus

Author: Little_Firestar and Artist: Justlook3

Link to art:

Word Count: 7596

Rating: T

Summary: As much as she had always complained about Jane, asking for help wasn’t her best trait as well, but right now, she didn’t have any other choice. Because she had to save him, save him from the nothing he had become. Too bad she couldn’t, not alone, at least. She just hated asking for help…

Disclaimers: No, nor the characters or the show belong to me. And this time around, there is not even an original character to claim as mine…

Notes: small spoilers for end of season 3 and for few fragments of season 4.

(part one)

She didn’t hire a private investigator, nor she asked for the CBI to look for him- she wasn’t even sure that the team, with, maybe, the exception of Lisbon, would actually try to look for Jane, to heal him. Words had been spoken, promises had been broken, and nothing could be taken back. The injury would, slowly, heal, and the body would become accustomed to the pain, but she knew that nothing could be the same ever again – a scar would remain, and the pain would be back every now and then, just a nuisance, but yet there -  if not with a lot of trust and work involved, and right now, she wasn’t so sure that Jane was ready to commit himself to such a thing, despite the fact that he had to: he was hitting rock bottom, and there was only one thing left to do, rising back.

Or maybe, dying, but she didn’t like to think about it, couldn’t think about it, she realized taking a big breath. She couldn’t admit being a complete failure, not again, it was for his sake and for hers as well. A long time before, Jane told her she was a healer, she was good at fixing people- as much as she could actually fix – he told her to give up on research, and so she did. She returned to what she thought she was good, because she thought she had… saved him, or maybe just healed him a  little bit, but if he would hit rock bottom, then… She didn’t want to think about, she just didn’t. She couldn’t have failed at this as well. She needed to save him for his sake and hers as well, because, otherwise, there was nothing left.

Closing her eyes, she took a big breath, and entered in the smoky, stinky and dirty bar of Vegas almost on tiptoes, like she was scared of actually getting sick- not that it looked like something so hard to accomplish- then opened her eyes, and after less than a couple of minutes, here he was, right where she thought he was – Jane, at the center of the bar, under a metaphorical spotlight, playing cards – poker, cheating, obviously, and she didn’t even need to know that to be sure – with a couple of girls – whores, she’d like to call them, but she was too much of a lady to even think it, let alone saying it out loud – in his lap. Half drunk, like Lisbon told her he liked to spend his time, unclean, unshaved, disheveled, with deep, dark circles under his red eyes- even under the black one, with a crowd around himself and yet… alone.

 As alone as he had never been in over a decade, and not for the first time Sophie wondered back to their time together, when he was her patient. He had been alone, back then, her his only connection to the world, and sometimes to reality, and right now, here he was alone, even if this time it was for choice, his own choice, even if he had believed it to be the right thing to do, the only thing to do. A sentence returned to her, no man is an island- not even Patrick Jane, even if… even if it was probably how he felt, how he had always felt. He was all alone growing up, at the side of a father who didn’t see a son but a way to get money, he was all alone after that Red John robbed him of his only real treasure, his family, he had been alone when he had tried to push the people who cared about him, saw him as family, away, and he was alone now. Because he felt like he had to. And it was her job to make things right, because, if she had any doubts, they just vanished: it’s not that she wasn’t sure she could save him, it’s that she couldn’t afford not to.

Taking yet another breath, she slowly walked towards the table, eyes focused on her, on her feminine body, on her designer clothes, and they kept eyeing her when she sat at the poker table, not asking for cards, but simply inspecting Jane, hands under her chin, like he was some sort of animal in a zoo or on Discovery Channel; he didn’t try to talk to her, didn’t openly acknowledge her presence - just a quick, almost a ghost, movement of his brows tell her otherwise- so she takes matter in her own hands, like she should have always done. “Hello Patrick. I’d like to tell that it’s such a pleasure seeing you here, but I’d lie.”

He smiled one of his smile, and she wondered if he thought she was stupid, because she was not. She knew, now, when he was faking, could recognize one of his faked smile. -and it was one, she could bet on it- still, thought, he remained speechless, at least towards her, like he was oblivious to her very presence.  She grinned, because, still, despite having probably failed at healing him, she had gotten, somehow, to know the man, a little, and she knew which buttons she was supposed to push with him- or the people around him, like those Neanderthals.

She just breathed a single word, grinning. “Chicken.”  

He didn’t even reply to her affirmation at first, didn’t bother to. Like he hadn’t bothered to pay attention to many things in the last few months, like his past, and the people from it- the majority of it, at least- and Sophie wasn’t an exception. Sophie was just like everyone else he had met in the last 10 years or so- or maybe his whole life-  a mean to an end, a pawn in his hand ready to be used and scarified as he preferred, at his own advantage- and paying the price she did, losing herself, losing her self-respect, losing her faith and her heart to man who didn’t deserve it, couldn’t give it to her- and didn’t want to.

Still, she kept studying him, kept staring at him, and still, Jane refused eye contact, refused to acknowledge her very presence with his conscious mind. His demeanor, though, betrayed him. because Patrick Jane could say many things about himself, but he was physical, his mind was a fortress, but so wasn’t his body- his body was his tell, and right now, he was saying- screaming- that he didn’t want her there, couldn’t allow himself to bath in her presence. Because as much as he had tried to forget about his past, he had realized he just couldn’t, could just put it aside, in a little corner, waiting for the instant it would be back with a vengeance, breaking him furthermore, little by little.

“So, what, Patrick, you aren’t going to reply? Too coward to even doing so?”  

“Yeah, what the hell are you waiting for? Put that woman of yours back in the place she belong!”

He didn’t acknowledged her presence, but his poker pals- and the girls- did so in his place; one by one, grunting or murmuring or making fun of him, they left the table, leaving him all alone, alone with her, alone with his past, alone with his failures. For a brief, cruel instant, he wondered if she felt that way as well, on his presence, a failure, because, frankly? He was quite disappointed with himself. He had manipulated Sophie into healing him- into believing she had healed him- just because he wanted, needed to pursue his vengeance, needed to kill Red John, and yet… he failed. A whole year of effort, all for nothing.

“Tell her I’m not coming back” his voice was small, but harsh nevertheless, it sounded like the broken shell of a man, a man with nothing to lose. Something that scared her. Patrick always had something to live for, but now? Now…

He threw the cards away, and drank a bit of his beer directly from the bottle, feet on the table like she wasn’t there; Sophie brethren in and out soundly, at closed eyes, wondering yet again what she could do for the man and if she had ever done anything for him at all, and like never before she felt like a failure, she felt played, used. Of course, back then she used to know who and what Patrick Jane was, but still, she had thought, hoped….

Maybe, she and Lisbon weren’t so  different after all, both blinded by their own feelings for the man, both hell-bent on saving him from himself and his past, both wonnabe saviors, saint, even if she, despite the age difference, she loved Patrick like a son, while Teresa, she was so much in love with him that she was ready to suffer if it meant seeing him happy; it was the kind of love that Patrick didn’t deserve, she realized with anger, because Patrick Jane was never going to give anything back, he was always going to take, take and take, always asking for more, always demanding and expecting, and Teresa Lisbon was the kind of woman to accept everything, anything, for his own sake- even his insults, his hate.

“Since you are not going to vanish just because I’m pretending you are not here, I’ll say it again: tell her I’m not coming back.”

She clenched fists and teeth, wondering why they kept seeing him as worth saving; Jane had been an egotistical jerk in youth, and here he was again, being one once more. She knew and understood trauma, but there was a part of her who couldn’t stand the disrespect, how he was threatening them like dirt, and yes, she had also wondered if he had “behaved”  just to get what he wanted from them. And yet…

Yet, as a doctor, she understood trauma and she understood Patrick Jane, knew of his uprising, how he da lacked any emotional- And moral - Bond and compass while growing up; Jane had never knew how to deal with his own emotions, he barely had them, and had been the center of his own universe for a long time.-until Angela and Charlotte had turned into his focal point; they had been the only good and honest thing in his life, he had once confessed her, they had started to shift his balance, to heal his emotional wounds, slowly making him a better man, a man who conned people for a living but who at least did so to give to his beloved ones what he had missed and lacked of himself. And then, they died,  died because of him (or so Jane had decided) and his focus had become Red John- finding him, killing him- and now, now Red John was gone, gone because someone else had pulled the trigger, and he felt like he had failed them once again.

Yet, a part of her still understood him, thought that she could still help him, that he was worth being saved, that was why she had to stick with him, no matter what.

But it didn’t mean she  had to be nice.

“Teresa told me you once told her you loved her” she paused, looking intently at him for any tell, not really expecting any, already knowing better, finally learnt from her past mistakes. “She thinks you said so to use her furthermore.”

“Well, good to know she at least knows how to make her job semi-decently” He laughed, almost cruelly, and Sophie’s heart constricted at the sight; this wasn’t the man she had helped, the broken and desperate man who felt guilt and shame; this man, he bathed in his own arrogance, and in the pain he could infer on others, her included, Teresa included.

“She said you were behaving similarly during a fugues episode, which makes me think you are reverting to your old con-man persona.” She almost lost her voice, but didn’t, fought back the urge to cry, to scream, to run away. She had made a promise, and she was going to keep it, no matter what, because she knew: that wasn’t Patrick. Patrick was hers to find behind this mask, this façade.

“That would imply that I did change at some point. Which, I didn’t.” He scrolled his shoulders with complete nonchalance, daring her to prove him wrong, grinning, thinking the impossibility of the fact. 

“You know” she kept on, crossing her arms and facing him, visually challenging the man, feeling a strength she had never possessed in the past, not when she used to deal with him back in the days, not when their paths crossed in past. “I think you come here because you are scared. You knew that if you had chosen to stay there, you would have hurt her. But you also knew that she would have accepted it, staying at your side and suffering in silence.”

“She took him from me” he hissed between clenched teeth, his bloody eyes focused on a bottle in front of him. His whole body tensed, and Sophie finally saw his tell, the only thing that could move the almighty Patrick Jane, Red John, the monster, his obsession.

“I think you went away to protect the both of you. You love her, but you don’t want to allow yourself to, you don’t feel like you can, but also because you know what could happen to you if you were to lose her as well.”

“She took…”

“That’s a lie and you know it!” she interrupted him, standing on her feet and looking at him in the eyes; she was no longer smiling, no longer having second-guesses, doubts of any kinds, there was just her anger towards this man, increasing by the minute. “Red John wasn’t yours any longer, you have given up on him the day you saved Agent Lisbon’s life by throwing away your only connection; you have given up on him every time you shared a piece of information with your team, every time you’ve been honest with them.”

“I was just using them” he tried to remain cool, emotionless as he said so, but Sophie saw it, the slight tremble, how he hesitated, for just a  fraction of second, to say so. here it was his tell, his everlasting mask back on.

“Do you know why you are falling into the deep right now? You’ve always needed something to focus on to believe you were in control of your own life; first there was the psychic act, then your family, last Red John, and now that he is gone, you are trying to use something that’s familiar for you to be on top of your game once again, so you try to con people for a living just like you sued to. But, instead of being on top of your game like you used to be, you are in pieces. You are in pieces because you can’t reconcile the man you sued to be with the man you’ve become. Because, like it or not, you’ve changed, that’s why I don’t think you were using them, and why I’m sure you were telling the truth to agent Lisbon.” He chuckled humorlessly, and Sophie merely stood, feeling she had, finally, kept her end of the bargain, that she was now free to go. “Goodbye, Patrick, despite the circumstances, it’s always good seeing you.”

She was almost at the door when he called after her, his voice yet again filled with humor, but a bit broken nevertheless. “You know, I didn’t remember you being that tough with me before..”

“You’ve never been such an ass before.” She smiled, half-turned, her hands already on the doorknob,  but when she saw  his eyes, she saw something, not only pain and regret, but a light, true and honest, and an hint of amusement, the road to happiness, and something else…

When, outside, the chilly nightly air, mixed with red desert sand, hit her full force, Sophie Miller decided to reconsider her previous statement: she had promised Lisbon she would have talked with Jane, but didn’t say anything about making him listen- apparently, though, she had done so. 

Maybe she wasn’t such a failure, after all.